Google has recently released, which are most likely passed you by, but could make a massive difference to your online visibility. If you want to know what they are before, your competitors find out. Just stay tuned hi there, if we’re just meeting my name, is live Duran, the founder of ranking academy. Do you click where I talk about the best tools, tips and ways to help you promote your local business online step-by-step and take by click on this blog? I cover everything: any local business owner needs to know from search engine optimization through social media.
My goal is to help you thrive online, so you can drive more visitors to your business and ultimately make more money. So if you’re new here consider subscribing and clicking on the Bell button, so you don’t miss any of my new articles. Finally, don’t forget to check out the description below, which is why I put additional nodes and links I refer to in this tutorial if you’re ready. Let’s jump right in feature number one add a request quote button to your listing: if you are a service provider such as a handyman, a landscape gardener or a consultant of any kind you’re going to love this feature, you can now add a button directly into your Google listing so people who come across your profile and request a quote for service you provide, which will be sent to your phone in just one click, as you can see on the screen for this new feature to be activated, you need to do two things.
First, if you haven’t done it already, install the Google my business app on your phone, you can find the links to the app for both iOS and Android in the description below once installed log into the app using the same email address you use for your Google. My business listing once you’ve accepted the terms and conditions you will be redirected to a panel where all the information regarding your Google listing will be displayed, such as the latest activity on your profile, your business reviews, reporting and so on.
I won’t cover them all today, as it is not the topic of this article. The second thing you need to do is to enable the messaging option on the app to do this tap on the customer tab at the bottom of your screen by default. You should see your customer reviews listed in there at the top of the screen tap the messages on the screen. You should see a note for the messaging feature, allowing this feature will enable customers viewing your listing to message.
You directly respond to questions, share information and quickly connect for free tap the turn on button. This will automatically turn on the messaging functionality and unable the request record button now go to Google and search for your business on your listing. You should see a new blue button right under the reviews. Labeled request, a quote: visitors can now submit the request directly to you using this button.
As soon as they do, you will receive an instant notification on your Google, my business app to which you can respond straight away. If that doesn’t impress your potential clients, I don’t know what will? Let’s now have a look at our next feature, feature number two questions and answers. Auto suggests, a few months ago, Google added the option for users to ask questions to a business directly from the Google.
My business listing most businesses I have worked with are totally unaware. This option exists as part of their listing and consequently ignore it. This is a true missed opportunity, since most of the time, the questions being asked are very specific and very often could lead directly to a new sell or getting a new customer. Look at the second-hand car dealer, for example, who has three unanswered questions, all of which could have led to a potential sell, but this is not new, since FAQ were launched in Google my business a few months ago.
What’s new, however, is that Google now Auto suggests answers to your visitors using a combination of your previously answered questions if you have taken the time to answer them, your customer reviews, as well as your Google posts. Let’s have a look at one of my clients, Google profile, who is an electrician. If I start asking question using the question-and-answer box, I can see suggested answers from previous answers from various customer use, as well as from Google posts yes published on his listing over time.
What does it mean for you, as a business owner, make sure you create regular Google posts with rich content relevant to your business, collect Google reviews from your customers, which will include answers to potential questions? Future customer may ask if you want to know how to do this, read my article, how to include keywords in your reviews and finally add the most common questions your customers ask to your Google listings yourself and provide the answer, as Google allows you to do it Moving on to our last feature, feature number three increase your number of followers.
With an offer. Did you know, customers can follow your business on Google Maps. This feature is even less known than the FAQ feature. I’ve just covered, but nonetheless not to be ignored. Just like on a Facebook page, people can follow your business by simply tapping a follow button when they find your business on Google Maps through their phone. But why would you want customers to follow your Google listing? Because your followers will find out about your latest Google? My business posts and promotions in the for use section on a Google map app.
This means the more followers you have, the more likely you can generate business, but this is not new. What’s new? Is the ability to create a welcome offer to incentivize new visitors or existing customers to follow your listing? And here is how it’s done open the Google, my business app on your phone or tablet on the bottom menu tap the option customers on the top menu tap? The option followers: you should see your number of existing followers in there tap the option, create a post in the middle of your screen.
Scroll through and select the option. Welcome offer create your welcome offer, including an image I’m going to use an image for 10 % discount that I have created earlier then add a title, a description terms and conditions and everything else that you think is relevant once you’re done tap on, publish and wait For the confirmation message to show, the next thing you need to do is to encourage new visitors, all your existing customers to follow your google listing by letting them know that if they follow you, they will get a special offer.
You can do this via an email with your existing customers or add a banner to your website or even publish a Google post to let anyone who comes across your Google. My business listing know that if they follow you, they will get a special offer. Once someone decides to follow you, they will receive a notification, and this is what they’ll see pretty cool right. If you want to test this yourself, why don’t you follow my Google listing and see what kind of message that you’re going to get? That’s it for today, Google is clearly spending more and more time and energy into developing its Google, my business tool, and consequently I am almost certain they will end up monetizing it in the near future, make sure you make the most of these new features.
While you can and include them as part of your strategy, so you can keep an edge on your competitors. I hope you found this useful and until next time, happy marketing
My name is luc de round the founder of ranking academy. Uk, where I talk about the best tools, tips and ways to promote your local business online step by step and keep by click on my blog, I cover everything. Any local business owner needs to know from search engine optimization to social media.
My goal is to help you thrive online, so you can drive more visitors to your business and ultimately make more money if you’re new here consider, subscribing and clicking on the bell button, so you don’t miss any of my new articles. One last thing don’t forget to check out the description below, which is where I put additional notes and links I refer to in this tutorial. So, let’s jump in with our first hack hack number one simulate local search results for different locations.
You may or may not know that Google uses location tracking technology to determine the location of a searcher. With this technology, Google can guess users exact location based on the IP address or GPS coordinate of the device they are using. This means that if I search for the keyword electrician near me on my office computer, I will get a very different set of results than if I conduct the same search for my computer at home located several miles away from my office.
This not only affects the Google map back results, but also the rest of the results, especially when there is a clear indication. The search is based on local terms such as a city, a postcode or a near me query. So unless you use a tracking tool, it makes it difficult to check if your business ranks in different locations when you are doing your research from the same computer. But if you don’t want to spend the money on a tracking tool, there is a free hack.
You can use to quickly check if your business ranks for your target keywords in specific locations. Even if you are using the same computer, go to Google and open an incognito window. Doing your research in an incognito window will prevent Google from giving you results. Based on your previous history, so the outcome will be totally clean in your address bar search for a keyword you are targeting for your business.
I’m going to use the example of one of my clients website with an electrician and wants to rank for the term emergency. Electrician in multiple local areas, near where his business is based, press return in the address bar, remove everything after the keyword parameter and add the following command and near equals city, replace the parameter city with the location area. You want to see the results for.
In this example, I’m going to use Bexleyheath, which is where the business is located and sure enough. They are at the number one spot in a map pack and in the traditional results. Let’s switch to a neighboring location called Dartford. This time they are number two in the map pack and number one in the more conventional results. This hack is very handy, as it enables you to quickly identify locations where your business is not ranking, just create or improve existing content for these areas to get more visibility and more traffic.
Moving on to hack number two find keywords: your competitors are ranking for it. All starts with someone typing a keyword in a search engine. If your business’s website ranks high enough for it, it is likely you will get a new visitor and hopefully, a new customer understanding. What keywords people are searching for is the foundation of search and that’s why it is extremely important to do some keyword.
Research before you start creating content for your site, but keyword research can be a bit tedious and time-consuming, especially if you start from scratch and if you’re new to this SEO game, you won’t really know where to start here is a hack that not only will speed Up your keyword, research process, but will also give you the ammunition you need to generate lots of traffic head over to neil patel comm.
Slash, ubirr, suggest ubersuggest is an awesome tool for anyone to improve their organic traffic and perfect. For those of you on a very tight budget, because it’s totally free okay, so let’s imagine I run a dental practice in London and these guys are one of my competitors. Boleyn dental comm, just copy their website address and paste it in the uber suggests. Search box. Select the appropriate country and click the search button uber suggests will display a statistical overview of the performance of this particular website, which includes the number of organic keywords.
It ranks for the estimated monthly traffic they receive the strength of the site, as well as the number of Link’s pointing to the site. You can scroll down for more data, but what we want here are the keywords, this guy’s ranked for just click on the tab, organic keywords which will take you to all the keywords that drive traffic to this site. The results are organized by volume, which is the number of times keyword a search for every month, position, which is where this business ranks in Google.
For this keyword, the estimated number of visitors they get for that keyword, the webpage on that site that ranks for that keyword and, finally, the SEO difficulty, which is how competitive this keyword is pretty cool right. Click on the export button on the bottom of the page. To download the full list of keywords in CSV format, which you can import either in an Excel spreadsheet or a Google sheet where you can filter through the data easily, so it’s faster to identify the best opportunities.
What you are looking for our keywords with low difficulty and high volume, for which you are not ranking for repeat this process with all your competitors aside and start creating content on your own website to target all the keywords you have identified as being opportunities. This should yield a lot of traffic time to move on to hack number three find links that are pointing to your competitors website, but not yours.
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ve, probably noticed. I talk frequently about the importance of getting external links. Pointing to your website. Links are one of the strongest signals Google uses to rank websites, the more quality links you have pointing to your site, the higher you will rank. This means that if your competitors have got better links pointing to their site than you, it is highly likely they will outrank you to beat them.
You just need to get better links pointing to your site, and why should you start by looking at your competitors? Links like we did with their keywords, go back to uber, suggest and enter one of your competitors web address. Let’s take with our dentist example. On the left hand, side menu select the option backlinks. This will show all the links that are pointing to this site. In this example, this website has two thousand six hundred and nineteen links coming from two hundred and seventy seven domains or, if you prefer web sites.
This means that some web sites have included more than one link on their pages, this dentist site to reduce your workload. You just want to identify only the web sites that are pointing to our competitors. We don’t need to see all the links to do. This make sure the one link per domain option is selected. The other thing we want to do is to select the follow option. The difference between a followed and a nofollow link is that Google doesn’t give any value to a nofollow link.
Therefore they don’t interest us. What we now have is a list of valuable links from unique web sites pointing to our competitors sites. All you need to do now is to go through each link by clicking on the open window icon and check if you can replicate what your competitor has done. Repeat this process with all your competitors site and export all the links in an Excel or Google sheets to make things easier to manage.
Let’s continue with hack number four identify citations inconsistency. If you don’t already know what a citation is, let me give you a brief recap. It is a mention of your business on the web, which generally includes the name the address and the phone number of your business, also known as nap. Citations are generally found in business directories such as yell, Yelp and many other specialized directories.
You can find a comprehensive list of the main directories where your business should be listed on my site at ranking academy da koat UK slash tools, slash business citations. If you haven’t done it yet, you should submit your business details to each and every one of these directories as they do influence rankings and help search engines. Trust your business is legitimate. The only caveat is your business.
Citations need to be a hundred percent identical across all directories. If they’re not, it will negatively impact your rankings and, obviously your traffic, and when you submit your business to multiple directories, it can be easy to make. A mistake here is an example of a dentist located in London called Camden high street dental practice, although it is correctly named in Google, my business and has the right address and phone number.
When I dig around the web, I can find this business listed under a different name in another couple of directories: the dental practice the postcode is also incorrectly displayed in Yelp and in Facebook. This type of inconsistency can be very harmful for your business, since Google will struggle to understand which business is, which you can verify the consistency of your citations manually if you want to, but it would take a lot of time and efforts and you’re not even guaranteed You will capture all of the errors either.
Instead, you can automate this process by using a tool called bright. Local write. Local is not free, but you can use it for free for two weeks without having to even enter a credit card which is more than enough for what we need to do so go to bright. Local com create an account once you’ve created and verified your account. You can add your business details using either your google, my business details or fetch your location manually, go through the location process, set up filling in all the details and let the tool pull out the data for your business.
This should take a bit of time, so be patient once finished, go to the main dashboard and sell the citations options in there. You should see where your business is mentioned across the web, and if there are any errors they will be highlighted in red. All you need to do now is correct. The errors, in addition, bright local, will also less directories where your business is not listed, which is the perfect opportunity for you to add more citations.
Let’s move on to hack number five increase your number of Google reviews with a custom build link. Did you know that reviews are the third most impactful indicator that Google looks at to rank businesses in a map pack? Well, you do now. This means the more reviews your business gets. The higher your business world rank in Google if those reviews are good, of course. Collecting reviews, however, is not always easy and can be a cumbersome process.
Many clients you deal with can’t be bothered to search for your business online, then search for the link where they can give you a review, etc. The trick here is to make it simple for them once you’ve finished dealing with the client just send them a quick email and ask them politely if they wouldn’t mind, leaving a review for your business. If you don’t know what to write download my review email template at the address showing on your screen or in the description.
But here is the real hack. Add a link in the email which, when clicked on, will open the Google review box for your business directly on your clients. Computer. All they need to do is write the review in the box. But how do you create the link? It couldn’t be any simpler right. Local I’ve just launched a nifty little tool completely free that allows you to do this in seconds head over to the address displayed on your screen, search for your business in the search box and click on the fetch links and ID button.
This will return. Three results. Click on the icon, next to the review link to copy the link and add it to your email. This will make the process so easy. You should see the number of reviews increased significantly along with your ranking and obviously the traffic to your site time to look at hack number six check your local positions in Google map. This is somehow a little similar to hack number one, but this time we only focus on the ranking positions in Google Maps, go to player, calm and choose the tools option from the main menu from the drop-down.
Select local rank, tracker, scroll down and start searching for. Your business add a keyword you want to check rankings for choose the distance between the pins that will get displayed on the map and a great size. The free version only allows you to pick three. You should start seeing where your business francs on Google Maps for the keyword you’ve selected. Why is this useful? Because you can easily identify areas where you’re just outside the map? Pack like position number four or number five, with a little bit of optimizing work? You should be able to climb a couple of positions, so you end up in the top three results and drive a lot more traffic to your site.
As I mentioned, the free version only allows you to choose a grid of up to three pins, but a full license for this only costs eighteen dollars a year. So it’s worth investing in it. Hack number, seven add quality content to your site. The quality and relevance of the content on your website is very important. The better your content is the more likely you will be rewarded by Google and the more traffic you will get.
But how do you find out? What type of content you should be adding to your site and how should you write it? Let’s go to uber suggests, once more and once again, let’s enter one of our competitors web address in the search box. Our dentist and click on search on the left hand, side menu click on the top pages option. This will show you the most popular pages for this site, based on the amount of traffic they receive like most sites.
The home page is the most popular one. So, let’s ignore it for now, let’s have a look at their content page instead at number two, I can see that a teeth. Whitening page is very popular and receives about 660 visitors a month, which is quite a lot and if you click on a view all option next to the page, it will show you the keywords that are driving traffic to the page, along with the rankings straight away.
I can see that teeth, whitening, London and best teeth whitening London – would be very relevant because they are very localized and although teeth whitening has a lot more potential in terms of volume, it is way too broad and likely to be very competitive. Since they’re ranked in position four and five for these terms, I wonder what their page looks like. So, let’s click on it. As you can see the page, it’s clearly optimized for teeth, whitening, London and is very decent, but the content is very thin.
So here is the hack if you want to get the chance to rank above your competitors, for the same keywords: just build better pages. Yes, it’s as simple as that. This dentist could have added a whole section around frequently asked questions: a article showing the process of teeth, whitening a price list, how to section that would explain how to look after your teeth once they’ve been whitened and much more.
That would make this space a lot more comprehensive and Google will see that and will reward you accordingly repeat this process with all your competitors and create better content every time it will pay off massively hack, number eight add popular Q & A s to your Google. My business profile – this is a widely overlooked feature in Google. My business and chances are your competitors aren’t doing it within Google, my business, you can add popular questions and answers.
The problem is anyone and everyone can ask questions and answer themselves on your own google listing which sometimes lead to some bad results. Would you want to see this in your profile? This Ellucian add your own questions and answers yourself. It will a prevent anyone from asking for something. That’s already been asked B, you will be able to give an accurate answer C. It will display right in your Google, my business panel, making your listing stand out and generate more traffic D.
It might even get displayed in Google search results. So what kind of questions should you put in there as a business owner? You know better than anybody else. What question people always ask time to put pen to paper and start collecting them, then add them to your Google, my business profile. You just bring up your business, listing click on the ask a question option and simply add both the question and the answer.
If you’re not sure what questions to add just head over to answer, the public comm tap a keyword related to your business in there and click on get questions. This will bring a list of the most common questions related to that keyword. Click on the data option to make this easier to read, find out what the most relevant questions are and write an answer for them then add them to your Google. My business ethic use final tip each question as a like option.
The more like an answer has the higher up. It goes on the list. So if you want a specific question to sit right at the top make sure it gets some likes all good things come to an end, including this article. Don’t just read it start playing with the various tools I have talked about and make changes to your site today, the sooner you do it, the sooner you’ll benefit from it. I love creating tutorials for you guys and I’m always open to new ideas.
So if you want to suggest any topic, you want me to cover in my next tutorial, just post them in the comments below. In the meantime, happy marketing,
Gaps that need to be filled and will also help you create the perfect road map to crush your competitors, An in-depth local SEO audit can cost Several hundred dollars, sometimes thousands if you Commission, an agency to Do it for you, But today I’m going to show you how to do a quick SEO.
Audit Yourself, so you can start improving your online presence straight away without Spending a dime I’ve even put together an SEO audit checklist, which includes a Ton of free tools and recommendations which you can download in the Description below so you can go through each step of the process for your own Business from the comfort of your home and at your own pace At the end of it, you’ll know exactly what you need to work on Hi there.
This is your first time, Here, welcome to the community. My name is Luc Durand, the founder of rankingacademy.Co.Uk, which I created to help local business owners like you, thrive, Online and run successful businesses If you want to join the thousands of people, Who are already part of this growing family? It’s simple and free. Just click. On the subscribe button and the Bell notification – and you will automatically Be alerted when I publish a new article If you’re ready, let’s jump in Google, my Business listing audit: Do you have a Google my business listing? I know this Sounds obvious for many of you, but they are tons of businesses out there who Have yet to claim their Google listing Like this one face: painting fairies, Google, my business is crucial to your online success and will have a major Influence on your overall online visibility, If you haven’t claimed your Listing yet do it now, if you don’t know how read my article, how to set up Google My business for best results.
If you have a listing and it is verified, it’s Important to get it right Here is what you need to look out for Business name Use the same business name that you would use in real life and that Is printed on any of your legal documentation or business cards? Do not Add any additional keywords in a hope: you will rank higher It’s against Google’s policy and you may get suspended, Address and phone number Make sure your address and phone number are accurate, get this wrong and you will Be in a world of pain, you will mislead Google and your customers too.
Business Categories Ensure you’ve selected the right primary category for your business. As it will influence your rankings enormously, This can sometimes be a Tough choice, dentist cosmetic dentist and dental clinic are three different. Categories so make sure you choose wisely Once you’re done with your Primary category, you can add secondary categories that apply to your business. Business hours Have you entered your business hours? If not make sure you do.
People look at this stuff, Don’t cheat and pretend you’re open when you’re not To avoid frustration and potential bad reviews, which leads me to my next point: Reviews Reviews are a major influence when it comes to rankings. It could make The difference between your competitors ranking and not you, How many do you have? How positive are they have you responded to all of them? You can encourage Customers to leave you more reviews with this nice little tool that will generate A link which will automatically trigger a Google my business review pop up and Ease the review process For more info on this just check my article on how to Collect reviews Website Link your Google, my business listing to your website.
If You haven’t done it yet FAQs. Have you added frequently asked Questions to your profile, FAQ will help people make informed decision about your Business People also use the FAQ option to ask about services you provide, which Can often generate fresh leads, so there are not to be ignored If you’re stuck About what to write in there here is a tool that might help answerthepublic.Com Throw a keyword in there and it will spit out a list of common questions.
You can use Photos. Photos are probably the best way of showcasing your Business and capturing attention so add some photos regularly. You can also add Articles and 360 panoramic views for better engagement. Google posts. Do you Publish any post, You can increase your visibility with Google posts Posts can Be used to provide an update about your business, promote a product, a service or An event They increase your listing prominence in search results, especially On mobile and are used automatically to answer FAQs in the FAQ section, Although they expire every 7 days, it’s a great feature, not Many businesses are using so make the most of it.
Business description. Have you Added a business description: if you haven’t time to start typing, You can add A description to tell customers a bit more about your business in up to 750 Characters: Google, my business, has more options available. Some of them industry specific, but if you can nail these down for now, you will Have a solid profile Time to move on to citations audit, If you don’t know what A citation is, it is a mention of your business in major directories and social Media platforms, which generally includes your business name, your business, address your business phone number and sometimes a link to your site like in this example.
On yell.Com, which is a major directory in the UK Having your business listed in These is the foundation of any local SEO strategy and is important for two Reasons these directories very often rank at the top of search engine results. For local searches, which may include your business and drive traffic to your Site but more importantly, it helps create trust and legitimacy with Google Who will be discovering your business across all these platforms, But for Google, to establish trust your business information needs to be accurate and Consistent everywhere your business is mentioned.
You could check the Consistency and accuracy of your business information across the web, Manually, but to be honest with you, it is a very tedious exercise and can still Lead to errors Instead use a tool that will do the legwork for you in my Opinion bright, local is one of the best tools to just do that. You can create a free account for 14 days without using a credit card which Is more than enough time to check if your business is mentioned in all the Right places, and if there are any errors, You can even download a full citation.
Report and will also have access to tons of additional information once you’ve. Set up your profile, The next thing we’re going to check is: if your website is Responsive Checking, if your website is responsive, is just ensuring that your Website works on all types of devices and, more specifically, on mobile phones. When it comes to local search, most of your visitors will come across your site. Via a mobile phone, so if your website is not compatible, your business is really Going to suffer To quickly check if your website is adapted to multiple devices, Download this free, resizer app in Google Chrome then simulate your website view.
On the various devices available, The next thing we’re going to look at is Your home page Since the home page of your site is your most important page. It Deserves to be analyzed separately, as there are many things to take into Consideration To really maximize your SEO opportunities: this is what you Should check Is your title tag optimized and includes the keywords and the city Name, you are targeting.
Have you added a Meta Description to your page, compelling Enough, so that people will want to click on your listing in Google when they come Across your business is there a main title, also known as h1, which stands for Header, which also includes your main keyword and city name, Is there an Obvious call to action on the page, such as a phone number that is visible Without scrolling down Is the call to action visible on the mobile version of Your site, without scrolling down, is there enough content on your page? Think Of including your services and products, and whatever else you think, is relevant Are you linking to important sub pages from your home page, which you’d like Visitors to click to and Google to discover Do all your images have an alt Tag Are you talking about your location where your business operates? Have you embedded a Google map related to your business, so visitors can check Directions straight to you from your homepage: Does your page include your Name address and phone number, which is consistent with your Google, my business Listing Once you’ve completed all of the above, it’s time to analyze the rest of Your pages For this we’re going to use a tool which is going to speed up the Process enormously Go to ubersuggest.
Com And in the search box add your domain name. I am going to use the example of This dentist located in tampa florida Click on search. This will initially give You an overview of your website, which includes the number of organic keywords: You’re ranking for the estimated organic traffic and the number of links pointing To your site, On the left hand, side choose site audit at the bottom of the Menu and click on search to trigger an automatic scan of your site, which should Take up to three minutes Once completed, you should see a breakdown of errors.
Warnings and recommendations Click on the first box to bring up the full list. In there you will be able to uncover issues with your pages, such as duplicate, Meta title low word count and missing headers across your site and fix them If You are unfamiliar with the errors, highlighted just click on the. What is This and how do I fix it, which is very helpful Since this is an automated scan? It doesn’t include every recommendation so once you’ve fixed the highlighted issues, I recommend you also check the following items for all your pages: Include the main, targeted keywords you are trying to rank for with your page And the city name in your main title tag Include the main targeted keywords: you Are trying to rank for with your page and the city name in your main header? Make sure the keywords is different from the home page and unique for each page.
Ensure your content is well structured and includes subheadings Add keywords in your subheadings, which are related to the main keywords you are Targeting for these pages Look at this example, One heading includes fuse box. And the other consumer unit, which are closely related. Finally, don’t forget to Add alt tags to your images Time to now. Look at how well your business is ranking in Google When it comes to local search.
Your business is likely to show in two distinctive areas within Google, The First, one is in Google Maps with your Google, my business listing, which will Also include the map pack, The second one is what I call the more traditional Results which sit below the map pack, which is where your business website Will be listed, It’s important to know how well your business ranks and for What keywords so you can monitor if any of the improvements that you have Implemented have made a difference to your ranking Head back to ubersuggest And re-enter your domain name, if needed On the main screen, click on the organic Keywords tab: This will show you all the keywords your website is ranking for in the Traditional results, you can even export the results in Excel, save the data and Recheck a few weeks later, so you can compare rankings and check if you have Gained any positions, If you are not ranking for any keywords between Position 1 and 10: it means you’re not on the first page of Google for any Keywords, so there is a lot of work to do To make things simpler, moving forward.
I suggest you create a profile in ubersuggest for your website, which will Track your progress automatically, so you don’t have to keep downloading Excel. Spreadsheets and see in seconds, if your doing well or not Unfortunately, ubersuggest doesn’t track rankings for Google. My business listings In Google Maps, so it only gives you half of the picture To do this head over to a Site called localFalcon.
Com Local Falcon is a software that allows you to Track how well your Google, my business listings, ranks directly on Google Maps For a given keyword, I love this tool as it is very visual and you can instantly Get a feel of how well or badly your business is doing. Local Falcon is not a Free tool, however, you can create an account and run one free scan, which will Give you a good idea of how powerful this can be for your business.
Let me run Through an example with another dentist, called Denton dental located in Nashville USA, Once you’ve created an account click on scan on the main menu Start typing your business name in the business field. It should come up. Automatically, Please note that if you have decided to hide Your business address in your Google, my business listing you won’t be able to Run the scan Add the keyword you want to target.
In this instance, we’re going to use “ dentist Nashville” Choose the radius you want to target and then the distance Either in miles or in kilometers, Then select the grid size, Click on run, search, You will see dots showing where your business ranks and in what position. Based on your criterias, Any position beyond three means: your business is not Featured in the map pack, which really is where you want to be Clicking on the Dots will give you access to more details and check which businesses Rank above you and how far down you are on the list, Local Falcon stores all your scans, so you can easily compare them and Understand if you are making any progress over time Time to move on to our last item external links, External links, pointing To your site are one of the most important factors that will influence Your online visibility, In summary, the more quality links you have pointing to Your website, the more relevant it will appear to Google, who will reward you With higher rankings, But how strong is your link profile? To check this go back to ubersuggest.
Com once more and search for your Domain On the main screen check what your domain score is. This score is Calculated on the basis of external links pointing to your site, The lower the score, the weaker the site Run the same scan for your competitor’s Site and look at their domain scores If your score is lower than theirs is Because they have more valuable links pointing to their site than you do This Means there is a great chance you will be ranking lower than they are for the Keywords, you are targeting.
The solution. Try getting more web sites to link to Yours, If you don’t know where to start, you can spy on your competitors, links by Clicking on their domain score, This will show all the links pointing to their Site Just try to get the same links as they do. That’s it for today now it’s Your turn Download the SEO audit checklist and run through each item. One By one, I’ve made this very simple to use just put a cross in Yes or no box and it will change color automatically Once completed.
You will See how well or badly you’re doing just by looking at the overall color scheme, And which item you need to address based on priority Hope you liked the article if You have any comments or questions post them below and until next time, happy Marketing
Nowhere And so SEO stands for. Search Engine Optimization and it’s work that you do To make sure that you prove to Google and other search Engines you’re the best So for SEO. I like to use the analogy of all the work that you need to do is like a 1,000 piece puzzle And you and all of your competitors. You all have the same puzzle and we’re trying to prove To Google who’s the best which one of these puzzles Is the most complete My puzzle’s best? Definitely the best Yours is definitely the best.
We know that Does Google know that We shall find out Right But the thing is not Everyone has all 1,000 pieces, Some people are new, Some people have been Doing it for a long time, and Google doesn’t necessarily care that you have all the pieces in The thing that Google cares about is that you have more than the next guy. You could have maybe 10 pieces and if you’re in not a very Competitive space then yeah you’re going to appear on the first page, So these eight tips that We’Re going to talk about are going to help you to Start putting those pieces in to get started on your SEO.
Journey for local businesses Perfect. So, let’s jump into the tips. What’S tip number one Tip number one for local businesses: Everybody needs this. Is you need to create or claim your Google My Business Profile, Google, My Business? Is this Tool that Google has created that allows users to see all Of your business information in one place, We did a article all about This so go check it out, so you can deep dive, but basically, if you don’t have a profile, You need to go, create one and, if you haven’t claimed your profile, meaning that your profile exists.
But you didn’t necessarily do It or some user created that you need to claim it. So that you can update it with all the right information Right, You need to make sure It’S in your control, Don’t let it out to the World for anyone to add It’s yours, So tip number two is that you need to optimize your profiles, It’s great to have it created, but if you don’t have all the information that Google is looking for, then they’re not going to recommend your business over someone else.
So that means having your Business name correct your address: your phone number, your hours of operation, Those are the basics that most people do, but optimizing it really Means going a level below that so adding photographs, adding your logo adding pictures of your building, so that was when people are Actually going to your business, they know what it looks like If you’re a restaurant include pictures of dishes.
And what you’re known for so that way, people have Lots more information when they’re, looking at your Google, My Business page, So those are the key things That you need to do to optimize If there’s reviews that are outstanding, you need to respond to All of those reviews You need to encourage your Customers to go and leave reviews, because that also plays a part In how you’re going to rank against other local business profiles, All right, Morgan What’S tip number three Tip number three: is you Need to add your business to relevant business directories.
These are other sites. That their main business is promoting other Businesses like yourself, and so you need to make Sure that your business, not only is there but the Information is correct and the great thing It’S an easy back link. Absolutely So it really helps with your SEO to make Sure that your business anywhere people are looking At these business directories, your business shows up All right, which brings Us to tip number four Tip number four is to Add your business address to your website.
It sounds pretty plain and simple, but a lot of websites don’t have that So again to increase your rankings. This is one thing that not Only Google is looking for, but your users, if they’re wanting to visit your business, they want to have the address. Very prominently placed So put it in the footer. Have a separate page about your location, Just make sure that it’s there Visible and very prominent All right so should We put a Google Maps thing on the site too.
Yeah that helps That’s. Visual People can click it. They can see exactly where you’re located the cross streets. So that’s Always helpful as well so just make sure that you actually have the address called out. And written out next to that Perfect, which brings us to tip number five, What’s tip number five, Make sure that your NAP is consistent across the web. What’S NAP, Name I like naps, I mean well ( laughter, ) Name address phone number, So you need to make sure That those three things are consistently formatted everywhere, So pick one and then Update it on your website, [ Nealey ], Stick with it, Update it on your Google, My Business and then update it anywhere.
Else where your website appears, If you don’t own those websites, Email, the owner and say: “: Hey: can you update this?” And most likely they will but just make sure it’s Consistent everywhere Perfect To number six, what do we got? You need to update your home, page’s, meta, title and meta description, The meta title and meta Description are things on your website that you control how your website shows Up on the search results, So whatever the meta title, Is that’s what will appear on the search engine results page and then the little description below This is a great opportunity for you to let your clients Know what you’re about So, if you are a coffee shop in Seattle, maybe you should have That, in your meta, title and description Put your location, Put more information about your business.
So that way, your users Know what you’re about Right and most website builders or applications that you use have a section for you. To add a meta title, a meta keyword and meta descriptions. If you don’t know how to go. In the backend and do it, which most of us don’t want to right So if you need help just contact, whoever you’re Hosting your site with They’ll, probably be able to help you get that information there.
Because if you don’t set anything Google will just assume Whatever it wants to put there – and it may not always be relevant to what you want to Invoke to your audience All right Morgan! What do We got for tip number seven Tip number. Seven is just to make sure that all of your other Seo elements are in place Make sure that you have great Content on your website Make sure that your Source code is formatted in the way that Google likes to see it, Make sure that you have a great number of high-quality backlinks that are pointing back to your site.
All of this will help with your local SEO. We actually did an entire article. All about the basics of SEO check it out right here, So it’s super relevant to make sure your site is structured in a Way that Google basically wants so on your site, those H1 Tags, like you mentioned it’s basically, a code On the site that says “, This is my most relevant Tag line,”, if you will So only one H1 tag per site.
Images are super important. Because Google cannot read images, but it can read text. So that’s that little description there Most website, builders or Applications, like Word Press, has a place for you to add those All right. Morgan, we’re On the very last tip, It’s been an incredible Journey # thejourney. What is tip number eight Tip number. Eight is To consider launching paid ads or Google guarantee, So if you’re not getting The results fast enough or the traction that you need Using steps one through seven and appearing in the organic sections, then this is where paid ads and the Google guarantee comes in, So you can consider doing these things Paid ads.
Obviously, it’s pay to play Whoop. You appear right at the Top of the search result, It’s amazing, but once Your ad budget is gone. You no longer appear there, But people click on the ads, They’re very effective. So I love paid ads. It gets you right to the top, but I’m not really familiar. With what Google guarantee is Give us the low down, So the Google guarantee Is basically paid ads supercharged, So you could pay.
Anyone really can pay to have their business. Appear in the paid ads, but the Google guarantee Takes it to the next level, where, if someone purchases the service through the Google guarantee And they’re not happy, they can get their money. Back, which is really awesome, So it’s Google vetting certain businesses and making sure that they Provide a great experience, There’s extra levels, you Have to do to qualify for the Google guarantee, but it’s really great and Stands out in the search results and people love it All right guys.
Those were our eight quick tips to help improve your local SEO. I hope you liked it I liked it Did you like it. Loved it, I thought you would Make sure you like this article Comment below on just Something you learned today Subscribe Ring the bell, so you Know when these articles are coming at your first, This has been The Journey. And we are signing off
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My name is luc de round the founder of ranking academy. Uk, where I talk about the best tools, tips and ways to promote your local business online step by step and keep by click on my blog, I cover everything. Any local business owner needs to know from search engine optimization to social media.
My goal is to help you thrive online, so you can drive more visitors to your business and ultimately make more money if you’re new here consider, subscribing and clicking on the bell button, so you don’t miss any of my new articles. One last thing don’t forget to check out the description below, which is where I put additional notes and links I refer to in this tutorial. So, let’s jump in with our first hack hack number one simulate local search results for different locations.
You may or may not know that Google uses location tracking technology to determine the location of a searcher. With this technology, Google can guess users exact location based on the IP address or GPS coordinate of the device they are using. This means that if I search for the keyword electrician near me on my office computer, I will get a very different set of results than if I conduct the same search for my computer at home located several miles away from my office.
This not only affects the Google map back results, but also the rest of the results, especially when there is a clear indication. The search is based on local terms such as a city, a postcode or a near me query. So unless you use a tracking tool, it makes it difficult to check if your business ranks in different locations when you are doing your research from the same computer. But if you don’t want to spend the money on a tracking tool, there is a free hack.
You can use to quickly check if your business ranks for your target keywords in specific locations. Even if you are using the same computer, go to Google and open an incognito window. Doing your research in an incognito window will prevent Google from giving you results. Based on your previous history, so the outcome will be totally clean in your address bar search for a keyword you are targeting for your business.
I’M going to use the example of one of my clients website with an electrician and wants to rank for the term emergency. Electrician in multiple local areas, near where his business is based, press return in the address bar, remove everything after the keyword parameter and add the following command and near equals city, replace the parameter city with the location area. You want to see the results for.
In this example, I’m going to use Bexleyheath, which is where the business is located and sure enough. They are at the number one spot in a map pack and in the traditional results. Let’S switch to a neighboring location called Dartford. This time they are number two in the map pack and number one in the more conventional results. This hack is very handy, as it enables you to quickly identify locations where your business is not ranking, just create or improve existing content for these areas to get more visibility and more traffic.
Moving on to hack number two find keywords: your competitors are ranking for it. All starts with someone typing a keyword in a search engine. If your business’s website ranks high enough for it, it is likely you will get a new visitor and hopefully, a new customer understanding. What keywords people are searching for is the foundation of search and that’s why it is extremely important to do some keyword.
Research before you start creating content for your site, but keyword research can be a bit tedious and time-consuming, especially if you start from scratch and if you’re new to this SEO game, you won’t really know where to start here is a hack that not only will speed Up your keyword, research process, but will also give you the ammunition you need to generate lots of traffic head over to neil patel comm.
Slash, ubirr, suggest ubersuggest is an awesome tool for anyone to improve their organic traffic and perfect. For those of you on a very tight budget, because it’s totally free okay, so let’s imagine I run a dental practice in London and these guys are one of my competitors. Boleyn dental comm, just copy their website address and paste it in the uber suggests. Search box. Select the appropriate country and click the search button uber suggests will display a statistical overview of the performance of this particular website, which includes the number of organic keywords.
It ranks for the estimated monthly traffic they receive the strength of the site, as well as the number of Link’s pointing to the site. You can scroll down for more data, but what we want here are the keywords, this guy’s ranked for just click on the tab, organic keywords which will take you to all the keywords that drive traffic to this site. The results are organized by volume, which is the number of times keyword a search for every month, position, which is where this business ranks in Google.
For this keyword, the estimated number of visitors they get for that keyword, the webpage on that site that ranks for that keyword and, finally, the SEO difficulty, which is how competitive this keyword is pretty cool right. Click on the export button on the bottom of the page. To download the full list of keywords in CSV format, which you can import either in an Excel spreadsheet or a Google sheet where you can filter through the data easily, so it’s faster to identify the best opportunities.
What you are looking for our keywords with low difficulty and high volume, for which you are not ranking for repeat this process with all your competitors aside and start creating content on your own website to target all the keywords you have identified as being opportunities. This should yield a lot of traffic time to move on to hack number three find links that are pointing to your competitors website, but not yours.
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ve, probably noticed. I talk frequently about the importance of getting external links. Pointing to your website. Links are one of the strongest signals Google uses to rank websites, the more quality links you have pointing to your site, the higher you will rank. This means that if your competitors have got better links pointing to their site than you, it is highly likely they will outrank you to beat them.
You just need to get better links pointing to your site, and why should you start by looking at your competitors? Links like we did with their keywords, go back to uber, suggest and enter one of your competitors web address. Let’S take with our dentist example. On the left hand, side menu select the option backlinks. This will show all the links that are pointing to this site. In this example, this website has two thousand six hundred and nineteen links coming from two hundred and seventy seven domains or, if you prefer web sites.
This means that some web sites have included more than one link on their pages, this dentist site to reduce your workload. You just want to identify only the web sites that are pointing to our competitors. We don’t need to see all the links to do. This make sure the one link per domain option is selected. The other thing we want to do is to select the follow option. The difference between a followed and a nofollow link is that Google doesn’t give any value to a nofollow link.
Therefore they don’t interest us. What we now have is a list of valuable links from unique web sites pointing to our competitors sites. All you need to do now is to go through each link by clicking on the open window icon and check if you can replicate what your competitor has done. Repeat this process with all your competitors site and export all the links in an Excel or Google sheets to make things easier to manage.
Let’S continue with hack number four identify citations inconsistency. If you don’t already know what a citation is, let me give you a brief recap. It is a mention of your business on the web, which generally includes the name the address and the phone number of your business, also known as nap. Citations are generally found in business directories such as yell, Yelp and many other specialized directories.
You can find a comprehensive list of the main directories where your business should be listed on my site at ranking academy da koat UK slash tools, slash business citations. If you haven’t done it yet, you should submit your business details to each and every one of these directories as they do influence rankings and help search engines. Trust your business is legitimate. The only caveat is your business.
Citations need to be a hundred percent identical across all directories. If they’re not, it will negatively impact your rankings and, obviously your traffic, and when you submit your business to multiple directories, it can be easy to make. A mistake here is an example of a dentist located in London called Camden high street dental practice, although it is correctly named in Google, my business and has the right address and phone number.
When I dig around the web, I can find this business listed under a different name in another couple of directories: the dental practice the postcode is also incorrectly displayed in Yelp and in Facebook. This type of inconsistency can be very harmful for your business, since Google will struggle to understand which business is, which you can verify the consistency of your citations manually if you want to, but it would take a lot of time and efforts and you’re not even guaranteed You will capture all of the errors either.
Instead, you can automate this process by using a tool called bright. Local write. Local is not free, but you can use it for free for two weeks without having to even enter a credit card which is more than enough for what we need to do so go to bright. Local com create an account once you’ve created and verified your account. You can add your business details using either your google, my business details or fetch your location manually, go through the location process, set up filling in all the details and let the tool pull out the data for your business.
This should take a bit of time, so be patient once finished, go to the main dashboard and sell the citations options in there. You should see where your business is mentioned across the web, and if there are any errors they will be highlighted in red. All you need to do now is correct. The errors, in addition, bright local, will also less directories where your business is not listed, which is the perfect opportunity for you to add more citations.
Let’S move on to hack number five increase your number of Google reviews with a custom build link. Did you know that reviews are the third most impactful indicator that Google looks at to rank businesses in a map pack? Well, you do now. This means the more reviews your business gets. The higher your business world rank in Google if those reviews are good, of course. Collecting reviews, however, is not always easy and can be a cumbersome process.
Many clients you deal with can’t be bothered to search for your business online, then search for the link where they can give you a review, etc. The trick here is to make it simple for them once you’ve finished dealing with the client just send them a quick email and ask them politely if they wouldn’t mind, leaving a review for your business. If you don’t know what to write download my review email template at the address showing on your screen or in the description.
But here is the real hack. Add a link in the email which, when clicked on, will open the Google review box for your business directly on your clients. Computer. All they need to do is write the review in the box. But how do you create the link? It couldn’t be any simpler right. Local I’ve just launched a nifty little tool completely free that allows you to do this in seconds head over to the address displayed on your screen, search for your business in the search box and click on the fetch links and ID button.
This will return. Three results. Click on the icon, next to the review link to copy the link and add it to your email. This will make the process so easy. You should see the number of reviews increased significantly along with your ranking and obviously the traffic to your site time to look at hack number six check your local positions in Google map. This is somehow a little similar to hack number one, but this time we only focus on the ranking positions in Google Maps, go to player, calm and choose the tools option from the main menu from the drop-down.
Select local rank, tracker, scroll down and start searching for. Your business add a keyword you want to check rankings for choose the distance between the pins that will get displayed on the map and a great size. The free version only allows you to pick three. You should start seeing where your business francs on Google Maps for the keyword you’ve selected. Why is this useful? Because you can easily identify areas where you’re just outside the map? Pack like position number four or number five, with a little bit of optimizing work? You should be able to climb a couple of positions, so you end up in the top three results and drive a lot more traffic to your site.
As I mentioned, the free version only allows you to choose a grid of up to three pins, but a full license for this only costs eighteen dollars a year. So it’s worth investing in it. Hack number, seven add quality content to your site. The quality and relevance of the content on your website is very important. The better your content is the more likely you will be rewarded by Google and the more traffic you will get.
But how do you find out? What type of content you should be adding to your site and how should you write it? Let’S go to uber suggests, once more and once again, let’s enter one of our competitors web address in the search box. Our dentist and click on search on the left hand, side menu click on the top pages option. This will show you the most popular pages for this site, based on the amount of traffic they receive like most sites.
The home page is the most popular one. So, let’s ignore it for now, let’s have a look at their content page instead at number two, I can see that a teeth. Whitening page is very popular and receives about 660 visitors a month, which is quite a lot and if you click on a view all option next to the page, it will show you the keywords that are driving traffic to the page, along with the rankings straight away.
I can see that teeth, whitening, London and best teeth whitening London – would be very relevant because they are very localized and although teeth whitening has a lot more potential in terms of volume, it is way too broad and likely to be very competitive. Since they’re ranked in position four and five for these terms, I wonder what their page looks like. So, let’s click on it. As you can see the page, it’s clearly optimized for teeth, whitening, London and is very decent, but the content is very thin.
So here is the hack if you want to get the chance to rank above your competitors, for the same keywords: just build better pages. Yes, it’s as simple as that. This dentist could have added a whole section around frequently asked questions: a article showing the process of teeth, whitening a price list, how to section that would explain how to look after your teeth once they’ve been whitened and much more.
That would make this space a lot more comprehensive and Google will see that and will reward you accordingly repeat this process with all your competitors and create better content every time it will pay off massively hack, number eight add popular Q & A s to your Google. My business profile – this is a widely overlooked feature in Google. My business and chances are your competitors aren’t doing it within Google, my business, you can add popular questions and answers.
The problem is anyone and everyone can ask questions and answer themselves on your own google listing which sometimes lead to some bad results. Would you want to see this in your profile? This Ellucian add your own questions and answers yourself. It will a prevent anyone from asking for something. That’S already been asked B, you will be able to give an accurate answer C. It will display right in your Google, my business panel, making your listing stand out and generate more traffic D.
It might even get displayed in Google search results. So what kind of questions should you put in there as a business owner? You know better than anybody else. What question people always ask time to put pen to paper and start collecting them, then add them to your Google, my business profile. You just bring up your business, listing click on the ask a question option and simply add both the question and the answer.
If you’re not sure what questions to add just head over to answer, the public comm tap a keyword related to your business in there and click on get questions. This will bring a list of the most common questions related to that keyword. Click on the data option to make this easier to read, find out what the most relevant questions are and write an answer for them then add them to your Google. My business ethic use final tip each question as a like option.
The more like an answer has the higher up. It goes on the list. So if you want a specific question to sit right at the top make sure it gets some likes all good things come to an end, including this article. Don’T just read it start playing with the various tools I have talked about and make changes to your site today, the sooner you do it, the sooner you’ll benefit from it. I love creating tutorials for you guys and I’m always open to new ideas.
So if you want to suggest any topic, you want me to cover in my next tutorial, just post them in the comments below. In the meantime, happy marketing,
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Gaps that need to be filled and will also help you create the perfect road map to crush your competitors, An in-depth local SEO audit can cost Several hundred dollars, sometimes thousands if you Commission, an agency to Do it for you, But today I’m going to show you how to do a quick SEO.
Audit Yourself, so you can start improving your online presence straight away without Spending a dime I’ve even put together an SEO audit checklist, which includes a Ton of free tools and recommendations which you can download in the Description below so you can go through each step of the process for your own Business from the comfort of your home and at your own pace At the end of it, you’ll know exactly what you need to work on Hi there.
This is your first time, Here, welcome to the community. My name is Luc Durand, the founder of rankingacademy.Co.Uk, which I created to help local business owners like you, thrive, Online and run successful businesses If you want to join the thousands of people, Who are already part of this growing family? It’S simple and free. Just click. On the subscribe button and the Bell notification – and you will automatically Be alerted when I publish a new article If you’re ready, let’s jump in Google, my Business listing audit: Do you have a Google my business listing? I know this Sounds obvious for many of you, but they are tons of businesses out there who Have yet to claim their Google listing Like this one face: painting fairies, Google, my business is crucial to your online success and will have a major Influence on your overall online visibility, If you haven’t claimed your Listing yet do it now, if you don’t know how read my article, how to set up Google My business for best results.
If you have a listing and it is verified, it’s Important to get it right Here is what you need to look out for Business name Use the same business name that you would use in real life and that Is printed on any of your legal documentation or business cards? Do not Add any additional keywords in a hope: you will rank higher It’S against Google’s policy and you may get suspended, Address and phone number Make sure your address and phone number are accurate, get this wrong and you will Be in a world of pain, you will mislead Google and your customers too.
Business Categories Ensure you’ve selected the right primary category for your business. As it will influence your rankings enormously, This can sometimes be a Tough choice, dentist cosmetic dentist and dental clinic are three different. Categories so make sure you choose wisely Once you’re done with your Primary category, you can add secondary categories that apply to your business. Business hours Have you entered your business hours? If not make sure you do.
People look at this stuff, Don’t cheat and pretend you’re open when you’re not To avoid frustration and potential bad reviews, which leads me to my next point: Reviews Reviews are a major influence when it comes to rankings. It could make The difference between your competitors ranking and not you, How many do you have? How positive are they have you responded to all of them? You can encourage Customers to leave you more reviews with this nice little tool that will generate A link which will automatically trigger a Google my business review pop up and Ease the review process For more info on this just check my article on how to Collect reviews Website Link your Google, my business listing to your website.
If You haven’t done it yet FAQs. Have you added frequently asked Questions to your profile, FAQ will help people make informed decision about your Business People also use the FAQ option to ask about services you provide, which Can often generate fresh leads, so there are not to be ignored If you’re stuck About what to write in there here is a tool that might help answerthepublic.Com Throw a keyword in there and it will spit out a list of common questions.
You can use Photos. Photos are probably the best way of showcasing your Business and capturing attention so add some photos regularly. You can also add Articles and 360 panoramic views for better engagement. Google posts. Do you Publish any post, You can increase your visibility with Google posts Posts can Be used to provide an update about your business, promote a product, a service or An event They increase your listing prominence in search results, especially On mobile and are used automatically to answer FAQs in the FAQ section, Although they expire every 7 days, it’s a great feature, not Many businesses are using so make the most of it.
Business description. Have you Added a business description: if you haven’t time to start typing, You can add A description to tell customers a bit more about your business in up to 750 Characters: Google, my business, has more options available. Some of them industry specific, but if you can nail these down for now, you will Have a solid profile Time to move on to citations audit, If you don’t know what A citation is, it is a mention of your business in major directories and social Media platforms, which generally includes your business name, your business, address your business phone number and sometimes a link to your site like in this example.
On yell.Com, which is a major directory in the UK Having your business listed in These is the foundation of any local SEO strategy and is important for two Reasons these directories very often rank at the top of search engine results. For local searches, which may include your business and drive traffic to your Site but more importantly, it helps create trust and legitimacy with Google Who will be discovering your business across all these platforms, But for Google, to establish trust your business information needs to be accurate and Consistent everywhere your business is mentioned.
You could check the Consistency and accuracy of your business information across the web, Manually, but to be honest with you, it is a very tedious exercise and can still Lead to errors Instead use a tool that will do the legwork for you in my Opinion bright, local is one of the best tools to just do that. You can create a free account for 14 days without using a credit card which Is more than enough time to check if your business is mentioned in all the Right places, and if there are any errors, You can even download a full citation.
Report and will also have access to tons of additional information once you’ve. Set up your profile, The next thing we’re going to check is: if your website is Responsive Checking, if your website is responsive, is just ensuring that your Website works on all types of devices and, more specifically, on mobile phones. When it comes to local search, most of your visitors will come across your site. Via a mobile phone, so if your website is not compatible, your business is really Going to suffer To quickly check if your website is adapted to multiple devices, Download this free, resizer app in Google Chrome then simulate your website view.
On the various devices available, The next thing we’re going to look at is Your home page Since the home page of your site is your most important page. It Deserves to be analyzed separately, as there are many things to take into Consideration To really maximize your SEO opportunities: this is what you Should check Is your title tag optimized and includes the keywords and the city Name, you are targeting.
Have you added a Meta Description to your page, compelling Enough, so that people will want to click on your listing in Google when they come Across your business is there a main title, also known as h1, which stands for Header, which also includes your main keyword and city name, Is there an Obvious call to action on the page, such as a phone number that is visible Without scrolling down Is the call to action visible on the mobile version of Your site, without scrolling down, is there enough content on your page? Think Of including your services and products, and whatever else you think, is relevant Are you linking to important sub pages from your home page, which you’d like Visitors to click to and Google to discover Do all your images have an alt Tag Are you talking about your location where your business operates? Have you embedded a Google map related to your business, so visitors can check Directions straight to you from your homepage: Does your page include your Name address and phone number, which is consistent with your Google, my business Listing Once you’ve completed all of the above, it’s time to analyze the rest of Your pages For this we’re going to use a tool which is going to speed up the Process enormously Go to ubersuggest.
Com And in the search box add your domain name. I am going to use the example of This dentist located in tampa florida Click on search. This will initially give You an overview of your website, which includes the number of organic keywords: You’Re ranking for the estimated organic traffic and the number of links pointing To your site, On the left hand, side choose site audit at the bottom of the Menu and click on search to trigger an automatic scan of your site, which should Take up to three minutes Once completed, you should see a breakdown of errors.
Warnings and recommendations Click on the first box to bring up the full list. In there you will be able to uncover issues with your pages, such as duplicate, Meta title low word count and missing headers across your site and fix them If You are unfamiliar with the errors, highlighted just click on the. What is This and how do I fix it, which is very helpful Since this is an automated scan? It doesn’t include every recommendation so once you’ve fixed the highlighted issues, I recommend you also check the following items for all your pages: Include the main, targeted keywords you are trying to rank for with your page And the city name in your main title tag Include the main targeted keywords: you Are trying to rank for with your page and the city name in your main header? Make sure the keywords is different from the home page and unique for each page.
Ensure your content is well structured and includes subheadings Add keywords in your subheadings, which are related to the main keywords you are Targeting for these pages Look at this example, One heading includes fuse box. And the other consumer unit, which are closely related. Finally, don’t forget to Add alt tags to your images Time to now. Look at how well your business is ranking in Google When it comes to local search.
Your business is likely to show in two distinctive areas within Google, The First, one is in Google Maps with your Google, my business listing, which will Also include the map pack, The second one is what I call the more traditional Results which sit below the map pack, which is where your business website Will be listed, It’s important to know how well your business ranks and for What keywords so you can monitor if any of the improvements that you have Implemented have made a difference to your ranking Head back to ubersuggest And re-enter your domain name, if needed On the main screen, click on the organic Keywords tab: This will show you all the keywords your website is ranking for in the Traditional results, you can even export the results in Excel, save the data and Recheck a few weeks later, so you can compare rankings and check if you have Gained any positions, If you are not ranking for any keywords between Position 1 and 10: it means you’re not on the first page of Google for any Keywords, so there is a lot of work to do To make things simpler, moving forward.
I suggest you create a profile in ubersuggest for your website, which will Track your progress automatically, so you don’t have to keep downloading Excel. Spreadsheets and see in seconds, if your doing well or not Unfortunately, ubersuggest doesn’t track rankings for Google. My business listings In Google Maps, so it only gives you half of the picture To do this head over to a Site called localFalcon.
Com Local Falcon is a software that allows you to Track how well your Google, my business listings, ranks directly on Google Maps For a given keyword, I love this tool as it is very visual and you can instantly Get a feel of how well or badly your business is doing. Local Falcon is not a Free tool, however, you can create an account and run one free scan, which will Give you a good idea of how powerful this can be for your business.
Let me run Through an example with another dentist, called Denton dental located in Nashville USA, Once you’ve created an account click on scan on the main menu Start typing your business name in the business field. It should come up. Automatically, Please note that if you have decided to hide Your business address in your Google, my business listing you won’t be able to Run the scan Add the keyword you want to target.
In this instance, we’re going to use “ dentist Nashville” Choose the radius you want to target and then the distance Either in miles or in kilometers, Then select the grid size, Click on run, search, You will see dots showing where your business ranks and in what position. Based on your criterias, Any position beyond three means: your business is not Featured in the map pack, which really is where you want to be Clicking on the Dots will give you access to more details and check which businesses Rank above you and how far down you are on the list, Local Falcon stores all your scans, so you can easily compare them and Understand if you are making any progress over time Time to move on to our last item external links, External links, pointing To your site are one of the most important factors that will influence Your online visibility, In summary, the more quality links you have pointing to Your website, the more relevant it will appear to Google, who will reward you With higher rankings, But how strong is your link profile? To check this go back to ubersuggest.
Com once more and search for your Domain On the main screen check what your domain score is. This score is Calculated on the basis of external links pointing to your site, The lower the score, the weaker the site Run the same scan for your competitor’s Site and look at their domain scores If your score is lower than theirs is Because they have more valuable links pointing to their site than you do This Means there is a great chance you will be ranking lower than they are for the Keywords, you are targeting.
The solution. Try getting more web sites to link to Yours, If you don’t know where to start, you can spy on your competitors, links by Clicking on their domain score, This will show all the links pointing to their Site Just try to get the same links as they do. That’S it for today now it’s Your turn Download the SEO audit checklist and run through each item. One By one, I’ve made this very simple to use just put a cross in Yes or no box and it will change color automatically Once completed.
You will See how well or badly you’re doing just by looking at the overall color scheme, And which item you need to address based on priority Hope you liked the article if You have any comments or questions post them below and until next time, happy Marketing
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Nowhere And so SEO stands for. Search Engine Optimization and it’s work that you do To make sure that you prove to Google and other search Engines you’re the best So for SEO. I like to use the analogy of all the work that you need to do is like a 1,000 piece puzzle And you and all of your competitors. You all have the same puzzle and we’re trying to prove To Google who’s the best which one of these puzzles Is the most complete My puzzle’s best? Definitely the best Yours is definitely the best.
We know that Does Google know that We shall find out Right But the thing is not Everyone has all 1,000 pieces, Some people are new, Some people have been Doing it for a long time, and Google doesn’t necessarily care that you have all the pieces in The thing that Google cares about is that you have more than the next guy. You could have maybe 10 pieces and if you’re in not a very Competitive space then yeah you’re going to appear on the first page, So these eight tips that We’Re going to talk about are going to help you to Start putting those pieces in to get started on your SEO.
Journey for local businesses Perfect. So, let’s jump into the tips. What’S tip number one Tip number one for local businesses: Everybody needs this. Is you need to create or claim your Google My Business Profile, Google, My Business? Is this Tool that Google has created that allows users to see all Of your business information in one place, We did a article all about This so go check it out, so you can deep dive, but basically, if you don’t have a profile, You need to go, create one and, if you haven’t claimed your profile, meaning that your profile exists.
But you didn’t necessarily do It or some user created that you need to claim it. So that you can update it with all the right information Right, You need to make sure It’S in your control, Don’t let it out to the World for anyone to add It’s yours, So tip number two is that you need to optimize your profiles, It’s great to have it created, but if you don’t have all the information that Google is looking for, then they’re not going to recommend your business over someone else.
So that means having your Business name correct your address: your phone number, your hours of operation, Those are the basics that most people do, but optimizing it really Means going a level below that so adding photographs, adding your logo adding pictures of your building, so that was when people are Actually going to your business, they know what it looks like If you’re a restaurant include pictures of dishes.
And what you’re known for so that way, people have Lots more information when they’re, looking at your Google, My Business page, So those are the key things That you need to do to optimize If there’s reviews that are outstanding, you need to respond to All of those reviews You need to encourage your Customers to go and leave reviews, because that also plays a part In how you’re going to rank against other local business profiles, All right, Morgan What’S tip number three Tip number three: is you Need to add your business to relevant business directories.
These are other sites. That their main business is promoting other Businesses like yourself, and so you need to make Sure that your business, not only is there but the Information is correct and the great thing It’S an easy back link. Absolutely So it really helps with your SEO to make Sure that your business anywhere people are looking At these business directories, your business shows up All right, which brings Us to tip number four Tip number four is to Add your business address to your website.
It sounds pretty plain and simple, but a lot of websites don’t have that So again to increase your rankings. This is one thing that not Only Google is looking for, but your users, if they’re wanting to visit your business, they want to have the address. Very prominently placed So put it in the footer. Have a separate page about your location, Just make sure that it’s there Visible and very prominent All right so should We put a Google Maps thing on the site too.
Yeah that helps That’s. Visual People can click it. They can see exactly where you’re located the cross streets. So that’s Always helpful as well so just make sure that you actually have the address called out. And written out next to that Perfect, which brings us to tip number five, What’s tip number five, Make sure that your NAP is consistent across the web. What’S NAP, Name I like naps, I mean well ( laughter, ) Name address phone number, So you need to make sure That those three things are consistently formatted everywhere, So pick one and then Update it on your website, [ Nealey ], Stick with it, Update it on your Google, My Business and then update it anywhere.
Else where your website appears, If you don’t own those websites, Email, the owner and say: “: Hey: can you update this?” And most likely they will but just make sure it’s Consistent everywhere Perfect To number six, what do we got? You need to update your home, page’s, meta, title and meta description, The meta title and meta Description are things on your website that you control how your website shows Up on the search results, So whatever the meta title, Is that’s what will appear on the search engine results page and then the little description below This is a great opportunity for you to let your clients Know what you’re about So, if you are a coffee shop in Seattle, maybe you should have That, in your meta, title and description Put your location, Put more information about your business.
So that way, your users Know what you’re about Right and most website builders or applications that you use have a section for you. To add a meta title, a meta keyword and meta descriptions. If you don’t know how to go. In the backend and do it, which most of us don’t want to right So if you need help just contact, whoever you’re Hosting your site with They’ll, probably be able to help you get that information there.
Because if you don’t set anything Google will just assume Whatever it wants to put there – and it may not always be relevant to what you want to Invoke to your audience All right Morgan! What do We got for tip number seven Tip number. Seven is just to make sure that all of your other Seo elements are in place Make sure that you have great Content on your website Make sure that your Source code is formatted in the way that Google likes to see it, Make sure that you have a great number of high-quality backlinks that are pointing back to your site.
All of this will help with your local SEO. We actually did an entire article. All about the basics of SEO check it out right here, So it’s super relevant to make sure your site is structured in a Way that Google basically wants so on your site, those H1 Tags, like you mentioned it’s basically, a code On the site that says “, This is my most relevant Tag line,”, if you will So only one H1 tag per site.
Images are super important. Because Google cannot read images, but it can read text. So that’s that little description there Most website, builders or Applications, like Word Press, has a place for you to add those All right. Morgan, we’re On the very last tip, It’s been an incredible Journey # thejourney. What is tip number eight Tip number. Eight is To consider launching paid ads or Google guarantee, So if you’re not getting The results fast enough or the traction that you need Using steps one through seven and appearing in the organic sections, then this is where paid ads and the Google guarantee comes in, So you can consider doing these things Paid ads.
Obviously, it’s pay to play Whoop. You appear right at the Top of the search result, It’s amazing, but once Your ad budget is gone. You no longer appear there, But people click on the ads, They’re very effective. So I love paid ads. It gets you right to the top, but I’m not really familiar. With what Google guarantee is Give us the low down, So the Google guarantee Is basically paid ads supercharged, So you could pay.
Anyone really can pay to have their business. Appear in the paid ads, but the Google guarantee Takes it to the next level, where, if someone purchases the service through the Google guarantee And they’re not happy, they can get their money. Back, which is really awesome, So it’s Google vetting certain businesses and making sure that they Provide a great experience, There’s extra levels, you Have to do to qualify for the Google guarantee, but it’s really great and Stands out in the search results and people love it All right guys.
Those were our eight quick tips to help improve your local SEO. I hope you liked it I liked it Did you like it. Loved it, I thought you would Make sure you like this article Comment below on just Something you learned today Subscribe Ring the bell, so you Know when these articles are coming at your first, This has been The Journey. And we are signing off
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